Whoa, Nellie, what’s up with the mess-up Musburger?

When ABC showed Keith Jackson standing at midfield to perform the coin toss before last night’s BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl, tell me you didn’t think, “Quick, get Keith up to the booth and send Brent Musburger home.”

Even at 81 years old, after not calling a game since the classic 2006 Rose Bowl, you know Jackson would have done a better job than Musburger.

And here’s the really bad news — potentially.

Fox’s four-year deal with the BCS expired after Tuesday’s Orange Bowl, and ESPN paid a reported $125 million for the next four years of BCS games, not including the Rose Bowl, which remains on ABC as part of a separate deal that also runs through 2014. So while that means a reduction in band shots, it probably also means the same number of shots of fans in the worst seats in the stadium screaming into the camera, and more chance that Musburger will do the national title game every year instead of just when it’s at the Rose Bowl.

Yippee.

Musburger’s overdramatization of, well, everything, is hard to take. And his attempt to put a play in perspective failed immediately last night when he called Nick Saban’s early fake punt a “Belichick move.”

Sorry, but every fourth-down gamble is not a “Belichick move.” Going for a first down on fourth-and-2 to try to ice a game, as Bill Belichick did in November, isn’t the same as a fake punt on fourth-and-23 at your own 20.

Of course, it’s not as though Fox will be missed. ESPN has a stronger stable of announcers — which makes its high-profile use of Musburger all the more puzzling — and it has far more experienced college football producers.

Fox’s Fiesta Bowl producer, for instance, couldn’t be bothered to show a replay of the biggest play of the game — a fourth-down stop by Boise State with 4:14 left — until the ensuing series was well under way. But, hey, why bother when there are fans and bands to put on TV? I know when I go to a game, I always worry more about them than watching the game. So why shouldn’t it be the same for the people at home, right?

NFL playoffs start

As usual, the playoffs begin with a wild-card doubleheader tomorrow on NBC. Cincinnati hosts the New York Jets at 1:30 p.m., followed at 5 by Philadelphia at Dallas. Tom Hammond, Joe Gibbs and Joe Theismann (his first national telecast since ESPN bounced him off “Monday Night Football” after the 2006 season) work the first game, with Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth in Dallas.

On Sunday, the game that will finalize the Chargers’ first opponent, Baltimore at New England, starts the day at 10 a.m. on CBS with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms (LaDainian Tomlinson will be interviewed at halftime). Fox has the final game of the weekend, Green Bay at Arizona, at 1:40 p.m. with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.